--p.
902. He quotes it as c. 7.]
By one who has not by experience become familiar with these things it
would scarcely be believed, that whilst the readers of Bellarmin have
been taught to regard these as the words of Eusebius, in the original
there is no mention whatever made of the intercession of the saints;
that there is no allusion to prayer to them; that there is no admission
even of any benefit derived from them at all. This quotation Bellarmin
makes from the Latin version, published in Paris in 1581, or from some
common source: it is word for word the same. We must either allow him to
be ignorant of the truth, or to have designedly preferred error. {174}
The copy which I have before me of the "Evangelica Praeparatio," in Greek
and Latin, was printed in 1628, and dedicated by Viger Franciscus, a
priest of the order of Jesuits, to the Archbishop of Paris.
Eusebius, marking the resemblance in many points between Plato's
doctrine and the tenets of Christianity, on the reverence which,
according to Plato, ought to be paid to the good departed, makes this
observation: "And this corresponds with what takes place on the death of
those lovers of God, whom you would not be wrong in calling the soldiers
of the true religion. Whence also it is our custom to proceed to their
tombs, and AT THEM [the tombs] to make our prayers, and to honour their
blessed souls, inasmuch as these things are with reason done by us.
Pages:
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213